56 ANGLING IN GREAT BRITAIN. 



has never handled rod before, and whose flies do not fall 

 like the traditional thistledown upon the water. Yet the. 

 sport, if not what it was when an angler was disgusted 

 if he came ashore at Kinross without his twenty or thirty- 

 pounds of fish, is maintained above an ordinary level. In 

 the year before last, I can recall one day in May, when 

 seventeen boats were on the lake — a full complement. 

 The wind and water were favourable, and the boats finished 

 in the evening with 212 trout, weighing 213 lbs. The 

 Loch Leven trout always seem to average one pound ; 

 and as I have watched anglers from Edinburgh, Dundee, 

 Glasgow, Stirling, Perth, Kirkcaldy, and Dunfermline, I 

 have often thought that their tackle is unnecessarily 

 coarse. No doubt they know their own business best. 

 They get fine sport certainly. 



Different from Leven are the lochs away in the unbeaten 

 districts of the Highlands. There is the small lake 

 swarming wdth yellow trout of three to the pound (game 

 little fellows to angle for on a summer day), and there is 

 the larger loch in which the pike keep down the small 

 fish, so that the angler will get none under two pounds. 

 The brown trout attain a heavy size — five, six, and seven 

 pounds — in these waters, and, unlike the ferox, they will 

 take a large fly with gusto. Spinning with a phantom 

 minnow of medium size, when the natural bait cannot be 

 procured, is useful for all these large trout, and for salmon. 

 In the streams the summer warrants the use of Stewart's 

 tackle, a most telling method, which one may almost 

 describe as fly-fishing with worm. I have seen it applied 

 by southerners in southern waters with surprising results 

 in perch and chub fishing. 



